The downstairs bathroom was cramped and tiny. Most of its floor space was taken up by a tub half-filled with stagnant water. The floor itself was bare and hard. It was pitch black. And yet, despite all of that, it had no windows. This made it, functionally, the only room in the entire manor that Beckett could even consider sleeping in. He pulled himself off of his drool-soaked backpack, which he had used as a makeshift pillow, aching more or less everywhere one would expect to ache sleeping on a hard bag and a harder floor. It was torture, and a few more nights of that would almost certainly break him. Even so, at least he did not have to worry about being naked near a window. It was as fair a trade as he was going to find.
Grabbing a handful of rations and the book of magic rituals from his bag, he prepared to sneak his way to the library. The stealth was almost certainly not necessary. The only other person who could enter this house (as far as he was aware at that moment in time) was Dierdre. Or, at least, the bobcat he knew as Dierdre. Hiding from her was a waste of time, since she seemed to have the ability to simply appear and disappear whenever it pleased her. Even so, sneaking felt right. It felt like the thing to do. It did not feed his anxiety, whatsoever, did not leave him with the irrational fear that he was doing something wrong or that somebody was around every corner, waiting to judge him for his shameful state. He certainly was not afraid of existing in his own house, and even if he was, that fear was not increasing with each passing hour spent unclothed. Certainly.
Certainly.
At least the fear he most certainly was not feeling would subside when he stepped into the library. Even with everything else going on, there was something calming and centering about being in a well-stocked library. The one at the University had been his favorite place to be, a place where he could hide and be distracted by whatever book happened into his paws, that day. He had not had time to appreciate it properly, the other night, between the intiial blind panic and the incident with the curtains, but this morning Beckett had to give himself a moment to appreciate the treasure that lay in front of him. Even if most of these books were too old, even if it turned out most of them were sun-damaged or eaten by vermin, the mere act of combing through them would no doubt take weeks. Months, even. If there was anything in them worth reading? The excitement was an ember in his chest, so warm he almost forgot how cool the air felt on his exposed fur.
Climbing the stairs, he made his way for one of the doors leading to the library wing. He would study his grimoire in that room. It was positioned such that the windows could illuminate the library for as long as humanly possible, and even in the early morning things should have been bright enough to read by. He would need a moment to quash his fears of being so close to large windows. Those were irrational fears, he knew, since the forest protected him from the village, and being on the second floor blocked sight-lines from anyone who would be looking from the front gates. Besides, with the sun fully out, all anyone would see were dark windows. He was safe. Nobody could see him. Even if they tried to. Even if they stood right outside the windows, trying to catch a glimpse...
He paused at the door, looking down at himself. Hard, again. Every time his thoughts wound their way to being watched, it got like this. He frowned down at it, ears flat against his head. Then, he sighed. It would not be the first time he did his studies while nursing an erection. It would not even be the first time he was erect in a library, though the last time that happened it almost... he quashed the thought. Covering himself with his book, he opened the door and snuck in.
Once inside, he let himself savor the room. He breathed in deep. Paper. Old, dusty paper. His one true love. Walking over to an old table, he set his book down and opened it to its first page. This was fine. this was perfect. All he had to do was stay away from the windows, and those treacherous drapes, and he could spend as long as he needed to, trying to find a way out of this mess. Surely, somewhere in this book was a spell he could use to...
"Nnngh..."
The sound Beckett heard behind him would not have frozen his heart any more if it had been the piercing roar of a Great Wyrm. He slowly turned his head towards the windows, terrified of what he was going to see.
Most of the large purple drapes that covered the massive windows were perfectly normal, half-closed and in more or less the position he had left them in. One of them, the third from the left, was in a noticeably more disorganized state. The one large bolt of fabric had split into four, and those four hung like sashes at uneven heights and in random places. When he followed them up to the ceiling, he found them tangled and knotted, looped around the body of a tall and lanky rodent. Rat, if the ropy, bare tail was any indication. Everything about the stranger was bare, in fact, barring the areas where thick linen ropes held him suspended, belly down, hindquarters pressed against the window and his sheath and balls dangling free.
He must have made a noise, an exclamation of distress, because the strange rat started awake. He looked down at Beckett, wide-eyed and confused.
Beckett looked up at him, equally wide-eyed and panicked.
They both screamed, almost at the same time.
"Wh-wh-wh-who are you?!" Beckett cried, curling into himself in a failed bid to hide. "What are you doing here?"
The rat made a noise of confusion, then scowled. "I'm a bailiff working for His Majesty's tax collectors," he replied. "I'm here to collect duties on this property."
The dormouse flinched, a moment of delusional hope on his face. "Truly? The King has sent you?"
"No, not truly!" The rat thrashed against his bonds, furious. "I am hanging from the ceiling like a cheap tavern chandelier, bare as a cheaper tavern whore! Does it look like I'm here of my own voltion?!"
"Did you see her?"
"See who?"
Beckett opened his mouth to answer. Then, worried that saying her name out loud might summon her or empower her or any one of a dozen magical effects, he balked. "Th-the Weaver," he said, after a pause. "A maid with a loom, creating bolts of fabric."
The rat stared down at Beckett, as if he had just heard the dumbest possible question that could have been asked to a man dangling naked from a set of curtains. "No one like that. I did meet a girl, but she wasn't working on a loom. She was lashed down on a bed, naked and growling like a hen drake in season." A smirk creased his face, as a bit of confidence returned to him. "One of my more interesting lays, that one. She cried for me like a..." He paused, when he saw the look of unspeakable horror on the tawny dormouse's face. "What's the matter, then? Is she your girl?"
No response, barring an intermittent sputter of lips that failed to resolve into words.
The rat scoffed. "No. No, you don't really look like you'd be her minder." He looked the mouse over, appraisingly. "If the state of you's anything to go by, you're in much the same boat as I am."
Beckett felt a fresh thrill of fear, as he realized he was being watched. He wrapped his fuzzy tail over himself and tried to curl in tighter. "D-don't look! Please!"
"Never mind that, now!" Any fear the rat might have been facing from the night before was now replaced with sheer indginity. "Get me down from these infernal ropes before they decide to try and tug me off, again!"
That was enough to galvanize Beckett, but only so far as he abandoned his book and crossed the floor to where the rat hung. Then, he hesitated. Looking up at the ropes, he took a moment to think. He had pulled them down, once before, and he could likely do it, again. However... reaching out one hand, his other pushing down his still obvious erection, he wrapped one of the tendrils around his wrist and began to pull off to the side. He grunted softly as he tugged, awkwardly and inexpertly.
The suspended rat looked down at this with an ever-dwindling amount of patience. "Oi! Lad!" he called. "You got two paws! Use 'em, in the Goddess's name!"
"I can't," Beckett complained, between grunts. "I-i-if I do that, you'll s-see..."
"Oh, grow a backbone! You're not the only one here with his prod and plums out for the whole world to see."
Beckett looked up, eyes wide. Despite his best efforts, he could not help them wandering.
The rat's ears flattened. "That wasn't a damn invitation, mouse!"
"S-sorry! Sorry!" Beckett let out a low, pathetic whine. Then, finally, he brought his other hand into the effort.
Despite the rather dire state he was in, the rat seemed to be buoyed by the fact that he was, provably, not the most pathetic rodent in the room. As his limbs were shaken and his body trailed to the left, he decided to venture a peek or two. The dormouse beneath him was a modestly handsome sort. Soft, fuzzy, with a gut like a rich man and an ass like a fertile woman. For all his complaints about being seen, the rat could not help but notice that this stranger seemed to be taking to the attention on him with clear and unambiguous enthusiasm. What inspired such a turgid reaction, he wondered? Was the dormouse one of those creatures who got off on the humiliation? Or had the sight of a long, handsome stranger catch his heart? His thoughts should have been on the situation he was in, how he intended to get himself out. At that moment, however, the only thing he was thinking was how wonderful it would be to take one more virtue, before he left. It had been weeks since he laid with another male, and longer still since he was the one on top...
Suddenly, he was falling. He did not even have time to cry out. One arm and leg fell loose first, causing him to roll sideways, and then the rest of him was sent spinning down to the ground. He collapsed in a tangle of limbs, directly on top of his rescuer. For a moment he lay there, groaning in pain, before finally pulling himself up onto his hands and knees. "It's good you're such a soft little thing," he remarked. "You hurt badly, or...?"
Beckett stared up at the rat, stricken with terror as he loomed over him. One could be forgiven for thinking he imagined himself in mortal peril, that at that moment he expected fangs to sink into his throat. In reality, he was overwhelmed with the thought of just how... lewd this position felt. It looked for all the world like the two of them were in a congress that no two men should ever indulge in, that he was the inferior in some unspeakable sex game. His cock, fully hard and in danger of spilling over with "fear," pressed and prodded against something soft. The rat's balls? Was this what his balls felt like? Beckett was too scared to look. Far too scared.
With a yap, he scrambled out from underneath the rat as fast as his paws could scrabble. "I'm sorry!" He turned away and got onto his knees, hands clutching his jewels, tail tucked between his legs in a vain attempt to hide the crack of his ass. It wasn't enough. He was still exposed. "I'm sorry," he repeated, his breath coming in rapid, shallow pants. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."
This continued for a moment, as the rat sat up and watched. The confidence slowly drained from his face, in a way that can only come with being stuck in a room with someone who is in crisis. His lusts were immediately quenched, and he was now once again aware of just how bad a situation he was in. He crawled forward, putting hand on Beckett's shoulder. "Listen, lad..."
Beckett gasped, at the sudden contact. Then he began to tremble. Something wet seeped between his fingers and spattered onto the floor.
"What?" the rat gasped. Then a pause. He watched the dormouse ride out the last of his orgasm. Then he repeated, more forcefully: "What?!"
"I'm sorry," Beckett sobbed, his voice tiny. "D-don't look. Please."
The rat deflated, then turned his head to the side to look at the bookshelves. "I'm not looking, lad. I swear it, I'm not. He exhaled through his nose. Then, he spoke again. "Listen... you got a name?"
"What?
"A name. You know, a name." The rat made a gesture with his other hand, as he tried and failed to conjure up a working definition of such a basic word. "Here. I have one. Wallace. My name is Wallace."
"Wallace?" the dormouse turned his head, finally brave enough for eye contact. "You mean, like Wallace of Kainsbury, the slayer of the Great Wyrm Tholidimus?"
Wallace had never read a book, and neither did anybody in his family, so the name thrown his way might as well have been the garbled tongues of a madman for all he understood it. However, purely to keep the conversation going, he nodded his head. "Yes," he lied. "Exactly. That is exactly where my mother got the name from. Good old Wallace of Kainsbury, slayer of Th... Thor... Thormus... slayer of Wyrms. Now, come on, lad. You've gotta have a name, yourself."
Something of a smile crept onto the dormouse's face, as he answered. "Beckett."
"Good." Wallace patted Beckett on the shoulder, once. He would have done more, but he was suddenly afraid of setting Beckett off again, somehow. Recovering, he nodded to the bookshelves with enthusiasm. "Beckett, my friend, it seems like the two of us are in some amount of trouble. I'm assuming someone made off with all your clothes as well?"
Beckett nodded and whined softly.
"Left all your other possessions intact?"
Beckett nodded again.
"Good. Then between the two of us, she's no doubt left us with enough to get ourselves out of this mess." He stood, stretching the ache out of his muscles from sleeping in the most unnatural position possible. "Do you know what her angle is? Why she's leaving people naked in old mansions?"
"I..." Beckett began, then blushed and turned away when he realized he was now at eye level with Wallace's sheath. "...I honestly have no idea. When I asked her, all she would say was that my clothes 'weren't mine.'"
"What does that mean? Did you steal them, or something?"
"No! I bought them at the market! Every single stitch! I do not understand it!"
"All right, all right..." Wallace made a placating motion with his hands. "All's well. We can't exactly expect perfect rational thought from a magic slinging bobcat who steals clothes and brings curtains to life." Suddenly remembering something, Wallace looked back to where he had fallen.
The curtain was back up on its rod, completely intact and as unremarkable as all the others.
"Anyway..." Wallace snatched up his bag from off the floor and threw it on his shoulders. Having already acclimated to being naked, he rolled the kinks out of his muscles with a casual and unhurried air. "I'm going to go scrounge around this place. Perhaps in the daylight I can find something usable." He made his way to the nearest door. "Any plans on your end, Beck?"
Beckett looked back towards the table. "I have a book I can look through. There might be some magic in there that can help."
"Oh, a wizard, are we?" Wallace looked back, beaming. "Sounds like you're our best shot for dealing with this Weaver lass, then."
The room was silent. Beckett and Wallace looked in each other's eyes. The dormouse was still squatted down, a little ball of fur trying to cover himself. Eventually, he spoke, almost inaudibly: "I... I would like a little bit of privacy, actually."
"As you wish," Wallace disappeared behind the doorframe. "Shout if you need me!"
When he was convinced he was alone, Beckett slowly rose to his footpaws. He took a deep breath. Then he took another. By the third, he felt somewhat better. Every inhale through his nose carried with it the bracing smell of paper. By the fifth breath, he felt like he was finally ready to get to work. Walking up to the table, he pulled a paw off of his crotch and reached for his book.
He paused when he looked down and found his paw, covered in thick white goo.
He would spend the next few minutes painstakingly wiping it clean against his outer thigh, before he dared touch his precious book with it.